growth.

as long as i can remember, tarot has been in my life. my mother started using tarot cards as a teenager in the 60’s, and spent much of her 20’s studying tarot. when i was born she had a little shop in the town where we lived where she would sell her stained glass pieces and give readings and teach tarot to the locals. when we moved to santa cruz because of my father’s job, my mother started studying with vicki noble, one of the creators of the motherpeace tarot deck. throughout most of my childhood there were weekly gatherings of women sitting around our dining room table with decks of tarot cards, drinking boxed wine and talking about things my little girl mind couldn’t comprehend. while i was more concerned with the latest tiffany single and the b.u.m. equipment sweatshirt that my mom couldn’t afford to buy me, i always liked getting readings from my mom, and i started playing with tarot cards as a teenager.

tarot incorporates both astrology and numerology, and i always really liked the idea of tarot personality and soul cards (formula for calculating these is at the bottom of this post) in the same way that i like seeing someone’s astrological chart. the idea of growth year cards has always really interested me. mary k. greer explains the cards this way: “personality card indicates what you have come into this particular lifetime to learn. the corresponding soul card shows your soul purpose through all your lifetimes. the year card represents the tests, lessons and experiences you will go through this year.” and angeles arrien says: “the personality card represents your expression in the outer world, your talents, gifts, resources; and how others see you. the soul/spiritual card represents the deepest core of who you are. this symbol provides an internal base of energy and natural resource for you to draw upon for your personality expression. your growth (year) card reveals all the possibilities for growth, opportunities, expansion, and challenge during the current year from birthday to birthday.”

i grew up in a town called nevada city, which is home to the brilliant mary k. greer. over the years i’ve had several readings with mary, and one of her insights into the year card is that while the calculation is from birthday to birthday, calendar year plays a role too. mary says: “january to january i experience circumstances which demand that i learn new reactions and directions. around my birthday i begin integrating my learning, and during the birthday-to-birthday cycle these new awarenesses, which yield new actions, are tried and tested and thus become a natural part of me.”

in my experience, the energy of the two cards come into play during that overlap period each year. for example my birthday is in august, while i’m currently in a 10/wheel of fortune year (which began on my birthday in august), i am coming up on an 11/justice year. while wheel of fortune is about luck, destiny, change and going with the flow, justice is about karma, balance, cause and effect and accountability. to me, the months where wheel of fortune & justice interact have a gravity or heaviness that was not present before justice came into play. old debts come back to haunt, closed cases are re-opened, the fine print and the devil of details come to get you. it can feel like a run of bad luck that comes in waves. you’re up then you’re down. there are a lot of sleepless nights spent questioning what’s this all about, why is this happening, what have i done to deserve this and what am i doing with my life? in my experience the two cards overlap and play off of each other in the space between calendar year and birthday in the way that someone’s sun sign is filtered through their rising sign in astrology.

another thing that i find super interesting are the cycles that we go through in our year/growth cards. in adding up their birthday with the current year most people tend to run through cards 4-14, and then start over again. for example a person might start out with year 4/emperor and run through the following years up to a card 12/hanged man and then find that they start over again, this time with a year 5/hierophant and then work up again through the following years until they begin a new cycle, this time with a year 6/lovers. i find that the year card that begins these cycles sets a tone and the years to come may revolve around that big picture. i also find it interesting that people typically repeat these cycles up to a card 12/hanged man and often start over there- rarely reaching a 13/death year and even more rarely reaching higher cards like 14/temperance and 15/devil. i’ve always felt like reaching 13/death years and above are signs of soul evolutions, like manifesting or even re-incarnating at a certain level until you evolve to a higher level.

personally, i began my current cycle in 2010, which was a 4/emperor year. in that year i received two big promotions into management positions which both included moving to different cities, and i also met my husband and became pregnant. over the course of this cycle i’ve started a family; become a stay-at-home mom; gotten married; started working in different areas and seen major transformations- all around themes of leadership & building a new life. this cycle will conclude for me in 2019 with my very first 13/death year. i’ll start a new cycle in 2020 with a 5/hierophant year.

if you want to calculate your personality card, add together the day, month and year of your birthdate. for example, if your birthday is april 7, 1969, you will add 4 + 7 + 1969 = 1980. then, add the digits – 1 + 9 + 8 + 0 = 18. your personality card would be 18/moon. the soul card is calculated by adding together the digits of the personality card. in the example above, 1 + 8 = 9/hermit. if the personality card is a single digit, the soul and personality cards are the same.

to calculate your year/growth card add together the day, month and current year. if your birthday is april 7, you would add 4 + 7 + 2017 = 2028. then, add the digits – 2 + 0 + 2 + 8 = 12 and your year card would be 12/hanged man. my favorite description of the year cycles remains this one.